Time Running Out
by Basic-bookworm
Summary: Set post TLG but only one very bery minor spoiler. Myles Fowl needs to beat Artemis. That means he has to come up with something better than kidnapping a fairy before he turns twelve. Relentian Grough Light DXCII might just be able to help... Title WILL CHANGE


**Chapter One **

**Time Running Out**

Beckett Fowl was _not _in a good mood. He had been slumbering peacefully, dreaming about his impending birthday when his good-for-nothing brother had dragged him out of bed and out of the manor, and into _Secret Hideout Number Four_, which happened to be the dampest and coldest as it was the one they had bribed Mulch into constructing under the lake.

So Beckett Fowl sat, cold, wet and pouting in _SH4, _an hour before dawn on his eleventh birthday and his good-for-nothing brother wouldn't even _tell _him why he was there in the first place.

Myles Fowl was nervous, though you wouldn't see it if you looked. At barely eleven years old, Myles had mastered the art of hiding his emotions, surpassing even his infamous brother, Artemis Fowl the Second. Although this was a remarkable feat, the boy dismissed it almost completely, hiding facial expressions from one who knew his face as well as their own gave him far better practice than anything his brother got. As far as Myles was concerned this was sheer luck.

The reason he hadn't already informed his sibling on the reasons for his anxiety was because he was waiting for his final coconspirator to arrive. Guinevere Mallory had befriended the twins six years ago when the then dirt-covered girl had pointed a furious Artemis away from where they hid in her family's allotment. The five-year-olds had recognised a kindred spirit and the three of them had been inseparable ever since.

Guinevere Mallory was _very_ happy. When Myles had called yesterday afternoon and made her promise to rendezvous in _SH4 _at five o'clock the next morning, she could almost smell an impending adventure.

She didn't mind waking up at four for the hour-long walk to the hideout, not if it meant something other than the monotony that seemed to linger around her too-kind mother and her too-mild father or her too-school-focused siblings. She did love them, but they were just _so BORING._

After a long walk was grateful to see her final destination through the veil of pre-dawn darkness. The entrance to _SH4_ was an ingenious trapdoor that Mulch Diggums the dwarf who had made the hideout had so generously added to to the design by solidifying some dirt, sticks, leaves and anything that would fit with his own spit so it blended in perfectly with its surroundings.

A _dwarf_. Now that's just the kind of thing that happened when her best friends were Myles and Beckett Fowl.

After looking around quickly, the small blonde lifted up the trapdoor and slid down the small chute revealed beneath. The chute itself was a design of Myles. The slide was slippery enough to slide down, but small holes all the way up made it double as a ladder to climb up.

The hideout itself was made up of two largish "rooms" connected by a smallish tunnel. Over the years the three had snuck many things into the hideout including three thin mattresses that were kept rolled up and leaning against one corner until needed, several battery-powered lamps that lit up the hideout in ways the dwarf's glowing spit hadn't, a desk that had to be taken in in parts and than assembled with a "borrowed" set of tools that had never managed to find their owner and now sat n their toolbox under the desk, there was also several chairs that were the same deal as the desk and a small, battery-powered fridge that occasionally held food or drink, but most of the time was used for a place for Myles to store his multiple, often-illegal and always-secret experiments.

On this night the boys sat on two of the chairs, Beckett appeared to be sulking and Myles didn't appear to be anything so nothing was out of the usual. When Guinevere ended her short ride by gracefully landing on her feet-a feat that Myles had never achieved-Beckett stood in a hurry and rushed over to his friend.

'Finally!' the dramatic boy cried, 'Smyles hasn't told me anything at all! I've been _dying_.'

Guinevere quirked a smile in the genius' direction. 'Have you been ignoring poor Kitty, Smyles?' The raven haired boy didn't respond to the teasing, merely indicated for Guinevere to sit with a slight nod of his head.

Itching with curiosity as to why their friend had dragged them both out here in the middle of the night, Beckett and Guinevere sat in two chairs.

When they were both seated the genius begun. 'My time is running out.' he announced as if that explained everything.

'What is _that_ supposed to mean Smyles?' Beckett demanded, his voice and face suggesting that if his brother didn't elaborate with something _good_ _immediately _heads would roll.

As ever, Myles was unmoved by the violence in his brother's voice. 'What I mean, _Kitty,' _he said, placing careful emphasis on his brother's hated nickname, 'is that our dear brother, Artemis Fowl the Second, discovered fairies, kidnapped Holly and became the first human ever to cross fairies and come out the victor all before his thirteenth birthday.'

'Yeah, old news, Smyles. We read about that in Arty's diary _ages_ ago.'

'What has this got to do with "time running out" anyway?'

Myles took a deep breath and held it, pinching the bridge of his nose he slowly released it, another breath in and he slowly spoke. 'Listen _carefully_. I need to beat Artemis.'

They didn't get it.

Guinevere was trying, she really was, but Myles just wasn't making sense. 'Beat Artemis at what, exactly?'

Slowly, careful to enunciate every word in its proper fashion, Myles tried again. 'Artemis did all that before he was thirteen. I have to do something bigger than what he did _before _the age that he did it.'

Beckett and Guinevere looked at each other. As one they turned to Myles and asked, 'How?'

Myles Fowl allowed himself to smile for the first time in two years, slowly, deliberately, he raised his eyes to the ceiling.

* * *

Relentian Grough Light DXCII did not like Earth, Erde, Terre, Dharti, Jord, земля, 地球, Terra or whatever you chose to call it.

The creatures that dwelled on the planets face had a very apt description of "insects" in that local "movie", as far as Light was concerned. The humans were barely passably intelligent and those Kuvting fairies that swarmed beneath we're no better. The planet was full of rude, smelly, noisy idiots and Light did _not_ like that.

So of course he was forced to cower among the surface-dwellers of its least favourite inhabited planet on this side of the universe as if he were a common criminal.

Light pushed his way through a crowded market place, trying not to vomit from the various smells that slithered from the garlic-drenched cooked meats in the stalls, his eyes searching for the Relentian that his intel told him would be here.

_How does any self-respecting Relentian live like this? _He demanded of himself. To fit in with the humans Light had to wear a disguise that shrank him from his normal twelve and a half tubits (roughly equivalent of 2.38 metres on this planet) to a tiny 1.93 metres. This disguise also changed his skin colour from the glorious red of his people to a pinkish imitation, these changes made Light constantly cramped and itching all over.

Light could not understand why any of his people would actively chose to live in this place, especially when they came to the markets.

_**Father warned me that you would be here today, Pau Light. **_A voice came from next to his left ear. Light grinned, wide and vicious, filled with entirely too-flat teeth. His younger sibling grinned back in a more subdued best thing about a planet so divided and so cut off from the rest of the universe is that you could start spouting out a completely alien language and no one would look at you twice or understand what you were saying. Of course the problem with that is that you are very easily recognised for what you are by other alien's to the planet.

_**Thank you for that information Kahr'li, I wasn't aware that the Light could still track my whereabouts.**_ Light looked around distractedly. _**Is there anywhere that we could talk in private little brother?**_

Kahr'li frowned in that annoying way that all younger brother's had. _**Not in private, no. However there is a cafe down the street where we can talk with less potential listeners.**_

Light followed his brother through the distracting crowd and to a relatively quiet end of the street where there were no stalls only several cafe's.

Kahr'li made a beeline to a very small one on the corner which appeared to be almost full. They made their way to the counter where Kahr'li ordered some form of drink that Light probably wouldn't touch and took a number. Walking to a vacant table in the corner, Light cast a suspicious glare around the cafe. At one of the tables closest to theirs there were three old women sipping their drinks and reminiscing about something or the other, at another table was a tired looking women and a tiny child.

_**I can never get over the fact that most species have separate genders,**_ Light remarked to his sibling, _**it just seems so pointless for half of the species only being able to breed with the other half. It's worse when there are **_**three**_** or more genders though, very inefficient.**_

Kahr'li sighed. _**We have more pressing issues to deal with than your racism, Pau Light.**_ there was that annoying frown again.

Light laughed, a harsh self deprecating laugh. _**You're as bad as father, Kahr'li.**_

_**This is no laughing matter, Pau Light.**_ Kahr'li snapped, clenching his fists, an act that would have skewered his palms had he been in his original form. _**I heard that you have no less than five assassins after you.**_

_**I assure you brother, there is not five of them. You may need to tell your informant to make sure his information is correct.**_

Light held back his amusement as his brother visibly relaxed. _**So it's not as bad as I've been told, there's still multiple assassins after you. How many do you say?**_

That feral grin again. _**Eight.**_

Kahr'li very deliberately closed his eyes, Light would have laughed aloud if it weren't for the severity of the circumstances when he saw his sibling's lips counting in English. When he reached _ten_ he opened his eyes and sent a glare to his older brother. _**Can't you be serious for one second? You have **_**eight**_** assassins after you, Pau Light!**_

Light sighed. _**I know, that's why I'm here on this planet in the middle of nowhere. I had been hoping that my darling sibling with his amazing network of spies would be able to tell me **_**why **_**I am being hunted, but you can't even tell me how many are after-**_

A waitress came to the table her smile as big as it was fake. 'Here are your coffee's, sirs, have a nice day.' She didn't appear to be the least bit uncomfortable despite Light's glares, she merely deposited the coffee and left.

_**You don't need a network of spies to know why they're after you, Pau Light, you just need a brain, I'm surprised father didn't just tell you. **_Kahr'li said, taking a sip of his drink.

Light huffed at this. _**If the Light knows where I am than so do fifty people that I don't know, so forgive me if I don't contact him.**_

_**Father is dying Pau Light, you know that. The Ngulaer are after you because you are the Pau Light, if you die there will be chaos amongst the entire Albiac and the Ngulaer will use that chaos as to attack.**_ Kahr'li took his coffee mug and downed the remainder in one gulp, cringing slightly at the burn.

Light cringed as well, though not for the same reason. He slid his drink over to his brother.

_**The Ngulaer have been our allies for two thousand cycles, Kahr'li, why would they move now? I don't think it is the governments that are after me.**_

_**How can you be so thick, brother? The Ngulaer are greedy they want more power, they'd take the universe and we're first on the agenda.**_ He downed Light's coffee and went on. _**What we have to do is- **_Kahr'li stopped mid-sentence and went rigid, his eyes wide.

Light leaned forward in concern, _**What is the-**_

_**Poison. **_His last word, the Relentian than collapsed.

Sheer horror crashed through Light. The child was crying, the woman was coming and leant over his brother's lifeless form and Light didn't need to, the loss of life had registered in the atmosphere and he was running, there were eight of them and if one knew they all knew, he smashed out of the shop and onto the street and looked around in horror.

It was deserted, there were bits of rubbish on the ground, the stalls were still intact, the various wares still were they had been left. Light could hear a several sirens in the distance.

He should've run immediately, but he knew and he couldn't help but turn around as the eight people from the cafe filed out one by one.

Except they weren't human anymore.

Without a second pause he shed his disguised and ran as fast as his long legs would allow, humans didn't notice him as he overtook their cars on the streets or when he ran right past their homes, he was far to fast for that.

Some corner of his mind wondered why the assassins hadn't followed him, in fact, why had they revealed themselves at all?

His ship was small, meant for one Relentian, it was as a largish rock in the middle of nowhere. The Relentian reached it five minutes after he'd started running, out of breath slightly from the exertion.

He slapped his now clawed, four-fingered had onto the side and its disguise melted away, a doorway melted with it. Light sped in and yelled to the computer in general. _**Initiate startup pro...ce...du...**_

Stop.

Three steps back and out of the ship.

Turn around.

There. A footprint, it wasn't his and it hadn't been there when he left. In that split second a lovely human onomatopoeic word came to mind.

A Relentian voice came from the ship's computer. _**Initiating startup procedure, Pau Light.**_

Relentian lips went, 'Bang.'

And the ship did the same.

* * *

_AN: READ THIS. This is the first chapter of an ongoing project in mine which centres around Beckett, Myles and Guinevere. This is a testSOS if you like it review and I'll keep going._

_Good Day,_

_~BB_


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